The Power of Tracking: The Understated Growth Driver for Your Affiliate Program

Affiliate marketing is an amazing way to grow your business, but to truly supercharge that growth, you need to harness the power of data. That’s where tracking comes in. 

In today’s data-driven world, affiliate marketing is only as powerful as the tracking behind it.  

With privacy regulations tightening and cookie-blocking on the rise, affiliate tracking has become the unsung hero that ensures you're making informed, strategic decisions and building stronger, more rewarding partnerships. 

For many, affiliate tracking feels like a technical jungle. It’s complicated and best left to the experts. But here’s the good news: it doesn’t have to be that way.  

In this post, we’ll show you just how easy affiliate tracking can be with Awin. Plus, we’ll demonstrate why it’s one of the most powerful tools for accelerating your affiliate program’s growth. 

What is affiliate tracking? 

Simply put, affiliate tracking is the process of monitoring the journey a customer takes from clicking on an affiliate link to completing a purchase. It ensures the affiliate (the person or company who referred the customer to your brand) gets the credit they deserve. 

Tracking measures which affiliates are bringing in the most sales, which marketing strategies are working, and where you can optimize to prevent missed opportunities and increase your returns. 

Why is affiliate tracking important? 

Tracking is more than just a way to measure sales. It’s a powerful and often understated growth engine for your affiliate program.  

In our own research, programs with optimal tracking setups boast higher growth rates in terms of sales, ROI (return on investment), and CR (conversion rate). The advertisers behind these programs are capturing more data and evidently using it to improve their performance. 

Here's how quality tracking translates to success: 

• Smarter decisions: Data shows what’s working, allowing you to focus your efforts on where you can yield the best results. 

• Stronger partnerships: If you can prove that you’re rewarding your affiliates for their true contribution and doing all you can to ensure their sales are tracked, they’re more likely to prioritize your brand and bring in more quality traffic. 

• Optimized spend: Tracking reveals where your budget is best spent, helping you to clamp down on waste and invest in what works. 

• Prevents lost sales: Even when technical hiccups occur, quality tracking means you capture every conversion and keep your program running smoothly. 

How does affiliate tracking work? 

Tracking uses small pieces of data, like cookies or pixels, to follow a customer’s journey. There are two main methods of doing this: 

• Client-side tracking: Relies on cookies and pixels to capture customer actions. 

• Server-side tracking: Sends data directly from your server to your affiliate platform, meaning sales are tracked even if cookies are blocked by browsers. 

Both methods work together to record your sales even when ad blockers or privacy settings are involved. 

How Awin makes tracking easy 

At Awin, we provide you with powerful tools to make affiliate tracking seamless and reliable.  

These tools are designed to work together, covering the necessary bases to keep your program running at an optimal level. Here’s what we offer: 

• MasterTag: A small, easy-to-integrate piece of code that tracks the full customer journey and provides all the data you need for tracking purposes. Simply install it on your site to start capturing valuable insights. 

• Fallback Pixel: In case your tracking is blocked by a tool implemented by the user (e.g. an ad blocker), the Fallback Pixel makes sure no sale slips through the cracks. Set this up to guarantee the continuity of your data. 

• S2S (Server-to-Server) Tracking: This method bypasses cookies and tracks sales even in environments with ad blockers or privacy settings. It requires an integration with your server to send data directly from your system to our platform. 

• App Tracking: If your business has a transactional mobile app, you can use specialized tracking to record in-app purchases. Implement Awin’s integration to start capturing data. 

Ready to take your affiliate program to the next level? 

Now that you understand the role and importance of quality affiliate tracking, it’s time to set your program up for success. Whether you’re new to affiliate marketing or looking to optimize a mature program, tracking plays a major part in your future growth. 

Check out our comprehensive Affiliate Tracking Guide to set your program up for success. 

Read the full guide.